Danish authorities are poised to press charges against 1,004 people who possibly violated the country’s child pornography laws by sharing a video recording of two 15-year olds engaged in sexual intercourse.
According to the Local, the investigation, code named Umbrella, originally began after a tip from Facebook which received complaints about a sex video featuring people younger than 18 being shared via the social network’s Messenger service.
"This is a very large and complex case that has taken a long time to investigate, not least because of the large number of suspects. We have taken the case very seriously, since it has serious consequences for those involved when material of this type is distributed. And that must be stopped," Chief Superintendent Lau Thygesen of North Zealand police said.
The police claim this case could constitute distribution of child pornography despite the fact that the age of consent in Denmark is 15 and both teenagers featured in the video in question apparently were 15 at the time of its recording.
The video was primarily being distributed between young people, and some of them only shared the video only on a few occasions, others apparently shared it several hundred times.